How Do You Handle Free Food At Work?
Q: How can I avoid the free food and office treats at my workplace? Sure, I could remove the temptation by not going to work anymore but then I’d have to start doing sketchy things for money again. Going back to being a working girl in a different sense of the word is something I simply won’t do because I made a promise to myself to turn square and that’s what I’m going to remain doing, dammit!
A: It’s good to see that you have integrity and are hesitant to break your vow of not hoeing. But when you think about it, there’s really no difference between walking the stroll and working a 9-5 because you’re still getting fucked either way!1Hooray for capitalism!!!
Anyhow, one of the reasons for the abundance of free food in the workplace is that it’s a bonding tool that gives people the chance to have conversations, build relationships, and network. The issue, though, is that most of the free food at work is high in calories and of little nutritional value, so consuming it on a regular basis can contribute to weight gain or make the loss of it difficult.2According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the average person consumes over 900 calories a week from foods and beverages that are provided by the workplace or brought in by colleagues, which can result in a pound of weight gain every four weeks.
So what are you to do?
The simplest solution is to bring your own food to work to give you an alternative to the food that’s around so you’re not as tempted to eat it because it’s the only option. If you have any pull at work, the next simplest solution is to ask that food isn’t put in prominent locations where it can be accessed mindlessly but is instead placed where it requires more deliberate effort to reach. For example, rather than boxes of donuts being left in the central working environment, they could be left in the breakroom that’s further out of the way. The inconvenience of having to walk those additional steps can reduce your likelihood of eating the free food. And if free food at your workplace is already left where it’s not so easy to see and noticeable when passing by, then all you have to do is play your part of steering clear of those areas where it can be found, such as the office kitchen and that particular colleague’s cubicle.
That’s right, eat the breakfast burrito prepared by a caterer at the morning meeting!
Eat the cupcake from the birthday celebration for Jane in accounting!
Eat the unwrapped candy from the candy bowl that everyone’s hands have been!
If your place of employment is one where food is always around from coworkers bringing it in or your company providing it, it’s a lot easier to incorporate that workplace food into your diet than it is to use every fiber of your being every…single…day to pretend that the all-present food doesn’t exist so you don’t eat it, which you will because you’ll feel like you’re depriving yourself and then feel guilty about.
Weight management being a practice of total self-denial doesn’t have to be that way because, contrary to popular belief, managing your weight isn’t about deprivation. That’s not what maintaining or losing your weight is about because such an approach is unsustainable, as demonstrated by the number of people who go above and beyond to avoid “bad” foods only to fail at the very thing they’re attempting, which will include you if you try to follow that path. On the other hand, what is sustainable is eating what you want but making sure that it falls in line with your overall nutrition by including the calories and nutrients in your daily totals. That means that you can give yourself an allowance of work food to partake in during the workday, so long as you factor what you eat into everything else that you eat for the day so you don’t end up going over your calorie requirements and risk weight gain.
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: calories, diet, fitness, food, nutrition
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